Tag: Wigmore

Just under two weeks ago, Nigel Farage and his gang (Arron Banks, Andy Wigmore etc.) received huge publicity for their visit to Trump Tower, New York City, where they met President-Elect Donald J. Trump. Following this visit it was suggested by several misguided individuals that given Farage’s apparent close relationship with Trump (although even this is up for debate) then it would be a good idea for Theresa May to appoint Farage as some sort of intermediary with the Trump administration. Eventually this developed into full-throttled discussion as to whether Nigel Farage should be appointed as the United Kingdom’s ambassador to the United States, serving in Washington D.C; with Trump himself entering into the debate with the following tweet:

although from looking at his Twitter account it seems as though he has since deleted the tweet, perhaps because he has finally realised what a terrible idea it would be, but who knows?

The main factor which surely disqualifies Farage from serving as ambassador is experience, namely Farage’s lack of any discernible experience of international affairs. Yes, he has been an MEP since 1999, however this won’t have really exposed him to international affairs to the extent that being an ambassador requires. In addition, the experience which he may have gained as an MEP will have little relevance to the role which the US Ambassador is required to carry out in Washington D.C., therefore suggesting again that Farage would not be at all suited to the position. It should also be recognised that Farage’s relationship with Trump could arguably compromise his ability to do the job, as he would be beholden to Trump for having in effect gained him the position, quite rightly former US Ambassdor Sir Christopher Meyer has described the prospect of Farage becoming ambassador as “barking mad”. Overall, Farage is completely unqualified for the role, and should in no way be considered for the position.

However, some have suggested that Farage should not be allowed the position because his would be a political appointment, this is a somewhat erroneous appointment. Although most ambassadors are foreign service veterans, there have been instances in the past where political appointees have become ambassadors. Indeed the UK’s current ambassador to France is Edward Llewellyn who was previously Chief of Staff to Prime Minister David Cameron. Therefore, Farage shouldn’t be disqualified based on his being a political appointee. The difference between Llewellyn and Farage is that in this role as David Cameron’s Chief of Staff, Llewellyn will have been in the room for key international affairs decisions. Farage would have no such experience to draw upon and thus would be unsuited to a similar role.

Secondly, Donald Trump’s claim that “Many people” would like to see Farage named as Ambassador needs scrutiny. There seems to be little evidence from recent UK history that contradicts the view that UK citizens want anything more than for Nigel Farage to retire from frontline politics. Seven times Farage has stood for Parliament, and seven times he has lost. Of those seven elections, only twice has he received a percentage vote share in double figures: in 2010 17.4 per cent of the vote in Buckingham as he challenged Speaker of the House of Commons John Bercow (although it must be remebered that the main parties traditionally don’t challenge the Speaker and therefore Farage had minimal opposition: and he still didn’t get elected); and in 2015 he won 32.4 per cent of the vote in South Thanet, losing a race he was widely expected to win to Conservative Party candidate Craig Mackinlay by almost six percent. Although Farage has indeed been elected to the European Parliament on four occasions, this speaks more of the fact that European Elections have typically been used as a way for voters to express dissatisfaction with the main parties, rather than suggesting anything good about Farage’s national popularity. Indeed, a ComRes poll conducted in August gave Farage a net popularity rating of minus twenty-eight.

Farage’s only real electoral success was being on the winning side in June’s EU Referendum. However, it is debatable how much he did to engineer this result. Although a good argument can be made for the theory that the referendum would not have been held if it hadn’t been for pressure from Farage, I’m not sure that much of an argument can be made for Farage being a reason for the Leave win. It said a lot that the official Vote Leave campaign were unwilling to touch Farage with a barge pole during the referendum campaign, with Farage instead having to be a part of the Leave.EU campaign put together by friend Arron Banks. The evidence at the time suggested that Farage was far too divisive to appeal to the undecided voters in Middle England which both campaigns needed in order to win.

So no, contrary to what Donald Trump says, there is not some clamour for Nigel Farage to become the UK’s ambassador to the United States.

Although, having said that, there are probably quite a lot of people who would be quite happy to see Farage shipped off to Washington D.C. and off our television screens for a while.